“It’s not going to happen,” Jack grimaced.

“I don’t think so, either.”

“All he’d be doing is inviting a Sanitation rap.”

“Jack, yo, ducks and chickens been hanging in Chinatown windows a hundred years. All of a sudden it’s a health issue?”

“Hundred Year’s Duck. Isn’t that the house special at Wally’s?”

“It’s all bullshit,” Billy continued, “When was the last time we had an epidemic down here? Eighteen-ninety-three or something?”

Through the frosted street window Jack saw the green car with the sanitation sergeant seated inside, idling at the corner of Bayard.

“The city’s just trying to pump bucks by pickpocketing the Chinamen, brother. Kee junior called it the Fuck the Duck Law. The Choke the Chicken Law.”

Jack chuckled, knowing that the more things changed in Chinatown, the more they remained the same. Been going on a hundred years. Old Man Kee had probably been too slow with the payoff, or the department had sent an overzealous, perhaps racist inspector looking to advance. The Chinatown lawyers found ways to work around municipal regulations all the time. Administrations changed. This, too, would pass.

“Everybody’s talking,” Billy said quietly, “about the Ping woman. The Fukienese one who got killed?”

Jack nodded, the cause of the demonstration at One Police Plaza.

“Three hoodie-wearing punkass, hip-hop motherfucker wannabe thug gangsters.” Billy’s eyes steeled over. “And I lost half the backroom boys yesterday ’cause they went to the protest at police headquarters.”

“It ain’t easy,” Jack said.

“Fuckin’ A that. The Fukienese Association wants the punks to hang. They hired white lawyers even. Sorta like a legal lynching.”

Jack checked his watch, thinking how long-winded Billy could get.

“But crime never takes a holiday, huh,” Billy joked. “So what else you need, kid? Some fun or some skin ?” Both were references to tofu products, but sounded perverted with drug and sexual innuendo.

The two of them broke out in laughter at this inside joke that arose from the many sweaty hours they spent in the cook room, boiling the beans.

Billy loosed a long sigh, adding, “You remember Jeff Lee? Got a little office in a warehouse on Pike Street?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “JK Trading, something like that.”

“Well, he was asking for you. I tried calling you, then I remembered you said you were away for vacation.”

“Why? What’s up?” Jack asked.

“Someone took like eight thousand worth of stuff, but they didn’t see no entry.”

That’s Ghost turf, thought Jack, dailo Tat’s territory.

“No forced entry? Didn’t Jeff call the cops?”

“Yeah, they came,” Billy answered. “The burglary cops, you know. They made a report, told Jeff they thought it was an inside job.” Billy leaned closer and said quietly, “Look, I told Jeff you’re out of the precinct, but he was just asking, maybe you could take a look around. Like a second opinion.”

Jack felt it again, the tension at the back of his neck, the reasons why he had to leave the Fifth Precinct. The Chinatown way, the Chinese mistrust of policemen and government officials, a historical divide covering centuries of corruption in China, and Hong Kong, where they’d refined corruption to an art form.

All the good things he accomplished as a cop here, made possible because he was Chinese.

All the bad things that happened along the way, also because he was Chinese.

Still, he thought he could have made a difference if only he could have kept his Chineseness out of it.

“C’mon,” Billy snapped, breaking Jack’s drift. “What fuckin’ inside job? Jeff works the place with his father and sister. It’s a desk and a coupla chairs, not JC Penney. They deliver to the vendors mostly. They don’t get a lotta walk-in traffic out there.”

“I had enough trouble in this precinct, Billy. I can’t chump some other cop’s report,” said Jack.

“I’m not saying that, but if your own folks really are robbing you, you sure don’t wanna hear it from some white cop who’s laughing inside.”

Jack shook his head at the raw truth in Billy’s words.

“Don’t worry about it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.”

“I’m out, Billy,” Jack insisted.

“That’s what I told Jeff,” Billy half-protested. “Here, take his card anyway. Call him if you get any bright ideas.”

Pocketing the card, Jack noticed the United National, a Chinese-language newspaper, on the counter. Plastered across the front page were photos of the Kung family murder-suicide. The headline TRAGEDY, reminded him to visit Ah Por, hoping for clarity. “You done with this?” he asked, folding up the newspaper.

“Take it,” Billy answered.

“You heard about the shooting on Division? Players with AK-47s?”

“Yeah, it was on the radio,” Billy remembered.

“What’s up with that?”

“Don’t know. I can check with the Fuk boys later. They’re working the slop room in the afternoon.”

“I’ll call you tonight.”

“It’s Friday,” Billy grinned. “You know where I’ll be.”

Jack smiled. Friday night was always right for Grampa’s, a revered local bar dive.

The sky outside the Tofu King looked ominous again.

Billy put Jack’s containers into a plastic bag, threw up his hands, palms out, and shook his head to refuse Jack’s money.

Jack smiled and thumped his right fist over his heart to say thanks, and backed out through the cold, steamy door.

He took the shortcut down Park Street onto Mulberry, going along Columbus Park.

He didn’t expect them to be there, the old ladies, but he wanted to be sure, and it was along the way. He was right. Not a soul here, the wind too cold, and the leaves long gone from the trees. In the warmer seasons, the old women lined the fence around the park, squatting low on plastic stools, with their charts, and herbs, and the red books containing their divinations. It was much too cold now, and Jack knew Ah Por would be indoors. He remembered her because Pa had gone to her those years after Ma died. Mostly it was for lucky words or numbers, or any kind of good news.

More recently, Ah Por’s readings, in an oblique manner, had provided accurate clues for Jack. The Senior Citizens Center, he thought, stepping away from the park.

The dull red brick building hunkered down on the corner of Bayard under the flat sky, a stunted cousin to the art-deco colossus a block away at Baxter: the Tombs Criminal Facility, also known as the Men’s House of Detention, and Criminal Courts Building. Its imposing facade was seventeen stories of cut limestone blocks, with solid granite at street level, circa 1938.

The red brick building was older, maybe a hundred years old. Its exterior was a blend of medieval-styled stonework, columns, and turrets. All the window frames were painted green. Jack remembered the place as his neighborhood grammar school, Public School 23, five stories of classrooms, auditorium, and cafeteria. Green linoleum throughout.

The school had served many generations of immigrants, including the Irish and the Italians. Ten years after Jack’s all-Chinese class had graduated, the community outgrew the school, redirecting its sturdy rooms to servicing the senior citizens and the various cultural and civic organizations. They served free breakfast to seniors now, at the same lunch tables and benches that Jack remembered eating at as a schoolboy. Jack recalled those free lunches: cheese sandwiches, split-pea soup, macaroni-and-cheese, peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. On rare occasions the kids would get a Dixie cup of ice cream.

When he stepped inside, it was as if the past had caught up with him, then surpassed him. The worn linoleum of his schooldays had been replaced by lighter vinyl tiles. Across the ceiling, hung new lighting, soft, but sufficiently bright for the elderly. The drone of people eating and talking filled the open space. Chung Wah, Chinese radio, played news and weather over the PA system, just under the chatter and gossip.